BIZ: The Brains Behind Wildbrain.com

BIZ: The Brains Behind Wildbrain.com

(indieWIRE/05.02.2000) — Wild Brain is the animation studio you know somehow, but you maynever have heard of. Founded five years ago in a San Franciscogarage by co-founder and current Creative Director John Hays, thecompany does animation that runs the gamut, from CG to traditionalcell animation, from TV series to movie special effects to creditsequences, and now online with a series of oddly compelling,innovative Flash animations, available at www.wildbrain.com. Some oftheir current projects that might ring a bell include the animationwork for the upcoming “Rocky and Bullwinkle” movie, as well as thetres cool Japanimation “Playa’s Delight” NBA ads running during theplayoffs this year.

Leading the online charge is Managing Director John Kirtland, who wasbrought on last year to spearhead the company’s Internet efforts in arapidly growing, crowded field of online animation experts thatalready includes Mondo Media, Honkworm, Shockwave and the eCompanies-funded Icebox.com. Kirtland comes from a background where he becameadept at straddling the fence between Old and New Media, growing upwith cable at HBO, doing some of the first Web content distributiondeals at CNN and Turner Broadcasting, and heading up theinternational efforts at Infoseek and Disney‘s GO Network. He’shelped forge a site that shows off some odd, mesmerizing series suchas “Romanov,” “Glue,” and “Joe Paradise,” the latter about amysterious international agent with no nose and one spindly hair onhis head. The site is also currently featuring a taste of forbiddenfruit with the original industry promos for NBC ‘s controversial andshort-lived animated series, “God, The Devil and Bob.”

Kirtland sat down with EB Insider to talk about the past, present andfuture of Wild Brain, the Hollywood-New Media divide, and theExpectations Game.

EBI: So first of all, do you think people’s expectations for theonline entertainment space are getting raised too high right now

KIRTLAND: You know, there is a lot of hype right now, and it’s stillgoing to take some time [for the space to develop]. A lot of stuffbeing developed for the Web will really only be important oncebroadband takes a bigger hold, which is still a few years on. So itscares me a little bit that with all this hype and all this talkabout it, and all the money, in five months people reading about itnow will not be seeing the results they’re expecting.

EBI: So why did you come to Wild Brain in this overheated climate?

KIRTLAND: You know, what’s really exciting about Wild Brain is thatwe can do any kind of animation you wanna see. And what’s reallyexciting to me personally is that I’m overseeing the dot-com piece ofit, taking this really diverse group of animators and talent andhaving them transform the Internet, seeing what they can do in thiswhole new medium, and they’re going crazy. You know, we put out anopen call, we needed some people to develop some things, and we hadeveryone in the company giving 20 submissions. A good example isthat we had a summer intern named Roque Ballesteros, who just came into work on some commercials over the summer, and he had a great ideafor a show. We’re premiering his 12 Webisode series called “JoeParadise.” It catches people off-guard, it truly is storytelling onthe Web, it’s not “Frog in A Blender.” I love “Frog in a Blender”and things like that, but this really is all about finding a new wayto tell stories on the Web.

EBI: And you’re doing all sorts of animation online, not just Flash,right?

KIRTLAND: Right now we’re doing everything. Our business model is tobe both a destination site as well as a producer and syndicator ofcontent.

EBI: How do you see that working, because that’s a contradiction in acertain sense. If you’re a destination site, you’re trying to draweyeballs back to your site, but if you’re a syndicator, then you’respreading the brand out wide, dispersing the audience.

KIRTLAND: We’re doing it because it’s a little too early to tell whatis going to be the most successful model. We can’t be a truesyndicator because we don’t have enough content to syndicate at thispoint. We will by the end of this year, we’ll have up to 20 Webseries that are either fully produced or in production. Right nowwe’re going to attack it from both angles and see what works. Theother exciting thing about having this corporate backing, thishistory in commercials and television, is that if we developsomething for the Web, which we can do at a much cheaper cost than atelevision pilot, and it kicks in, then somebody may hopefully cometo us and say, we love your stuff, we’re MTV, we’re USA Network,we’re whoever, and we’d love to turn that into a TV show. And we’llsay great, we’ll license you the rights to do that, and you knowwhat, we have a production company who can produce that as well. Andthen, oh, you’ve sold some commercial time? Terrific, we’ll producethe commercials for you, too. You know, I’ve always wanted to run myown television network, and here’s my opportunity to create one onthe Web. And I just really like these guys, it’s a very creativeenvironment, and there’s not a lot of studio influence, which is good.

EBI: What do you think of this confluence between Silicon Valley andHollywood? How is this mix going to work out?

KIRTLAND: There are a lot of very interesting deals being done rightnow, there’s some very interesting names being attracted to theInternet. When you hear David Lynch, when you hear the “South Park“guys, people start to listen, excitement is generated.

EBI: But do you think the traditional media’s growing influence inthe space is good, bad, do they get it, do they not get it?

KIRTLAND: You know, I have to be careful what I’m saying here becauseI used to work for two of these companies, one being Time Warner, theother Disney, and they both had interesting experiences in thisspace. I think both of those companies get it in many ways, but theexciting thing about the Internet is that anyone can participate.You may not have a massive marketing budget, but word-of-mouth worksvery well on the Internet, you can put something up there, people canfind it, and all the sudden it spreads like wildfire, it’s nuts. I dothink that the big studios, they’re going to get it, and I certainlywant to work with them, because one of the things they bring to thetable is the capacity to build a brand name in ways I don’t have.Partnering with somebody like a Time-Warner that has EntertainmentWeekly magazine, their cable channels, etc., they have the capacityto really build brands. Disney is the king of that. Don’t countthem out, they will figure this out and be big players in all ofthis. It’s just a question of how and when it shakes out.

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